************ ABOUT THIS THREAD ************
Once a year, all members of the WineBoard are invited to participate in an offline excursion, usually 3 days, to a selected wine region. In 2006, we are planning a visit to Napa & Sonoma in No. California. The dates (subject to change) are July 21,22, & 23. This thread will discuss the specifics of the itinerary, accommodations, costs, etc.

All are invited to join us. The only requirements are: be at least 21, enjoy wine, and want to have a good time with fellow wineboard members.

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Deirdre, my friend from Regis Martin, will be posting a strawcase itinerary this weekend & will also be available to help people individually with airline tickets, etc.

We want to keep prices moderate and include as many requests as possible. Here's a broad overview of what's she's working on, as far as I know.

Deirdre suggests planning to fly in Thursday, July 20th if possible. Thursday night she suggests staying in "the city", i.e. San Francisco. She can arrange a good discount at a very nice hotel. Dinner on your own or we can plan to meet at any of about a zillion great SF restaurants.

Now you're talking, Jackie. Two questions. If we're staying in Calistoga Friday night, isn't the CCA a bit of a commute? I thought it was in San Francisco. Second, can we make suggestions about particular winery visits? If so, I would very heartily recommend Lewelling in St. Helena and Mietz or Acorn in Healdsburg. They're all nice and small, and not on the normal tourist route. Bill and Betsy Nachbaur, who own Acorn, live in San Francisco might be persuaded to join us for dinner on Thursday evening.

I like your other suggestions. Sounds like fun. The hard part will be fitting everything in and, of course, getting everyone out of the tasting rooms and back in the van (or whatever). Should be a blast.

For dinner on arrival night (Thursday) I suggest we all go out for dinner together at a Russian Hill neightbor restaurant in San Francisco called 1550 Hyde Cafe and Wine Bar. They have excellent food, a 40,000 bottle wine cellar, wine flights and very winesmart staff.